A very basic program I've been playing with

This is a discussion on A very basic program I've been playing with within the C++ Programming forums, part of the General Programming Boards category; I have recently picked up learning to program where I left of some time ago. I have always loved the ...

A very basic program I've been playing with

I have recently picked up learning to program where I left of some time ago. I have always loved the idea of programming and find C++ fascinating(ly complicated). I have, at this point, essentially the knowledge level of an "Intro to C++" class and what else I have found searching the interwebs. I have been working on this program as way to practice implementation as I move forward. My goal is to, over time, expand it's functionality to actually useful operations and to have something to rewrite from scratch whenever I learn groundbreaking new concepts or techniques (structures are next ). In time I hope to have this program turn into a useful customized program to handle mundane or repetitive tasks in my Windows (7 x64) environment (eventually it will become a Win32 app with a GUI). I have included two versions in my post. One with my original comments and one without (for grumpy and the like who don't like them). I believe my use of function names and structuring should make it relatively easy to follow without them. Please take a look.

With comments:

PHP Code:

#include <cstdlib>#include <iostream>#include <windows.h>#include <ctime> //some of these are for future use

A few questions I have:
1) Are there any mistakes I've made that demonstrate a clear lack of proper understanding for a concept?
2) I included at one point:

PHP Code:

system("cd c:/"); //I tried "cd c://" too to literally pass the "/"system("dir"); //which still may not have been correct

This was to display the contents of the root of C:/ to the user, however the "cd" function never appeared to run. The "dir" command functioned as one would expect displaying the contents of the currently active directory. Why did the "cd" command not function as expected? Is it that it was not (or could not) be passed correctly to system()? Or did it simply execute in a new window that closed to quickly to see?3)Is there anything in particular that I should look into next besides simply the next tutorial on the list?

Any other comments, questions, criticisms or blatant insults are welcome and greatly appreciated. Thank you all for the help you've already provided me via replies to other user's posts.

First, a blatant insult: your program is too much of a pile of junk for me to make much sense of it or to have any real interest in it. Normally, a program does one useful thing well. I don't see any unity in the things your program does. But that's your call.

As for the slashes with the cd command, you're using the wrong slash. Try \\ instead of //.

And you don't have to use endl all the time. Instead of this:
cout << " Error!" << endl;
you can simply do this
cout << " Error!\n"; // note the direction of the slash

Also, it doesn't make much sense to post your code as PHP code or to fool with the default font for the main body of your post.

Yuck, red orange and blue code?! That's horrible. Please just post as plain text and let the forums automatically do the syntax hilighting.
You don't need to use a non-default font either.
This is too annoying to read and so I'm not going to bother. (Just being honest)

For whatever reason since posting I was only able to edit the OP once. Now I no longer have the option for God and Alex only know why. First off, I used the PHP tags because the CODE tags left my code in plain text, black and white. And the font is for readability, I find the default font to run together too easily (especially on late night eyes). As I said before I know very little code so its difficult for this program to be much more than a steaming pile of venereal disease infested crap, but it has helped me to practice implementation of very basic principles and given me a foundation to build on. Thank you both for your replies and I look forward to retrying the "cd" command with correct slashes.